Driving forward: Celebrating 30 years of the Chelsea Women

Former chair of the Chelsea Women, Adrian Jacob reflected on the beginning years of the club just before the Champions League final against Barcelona, stating, “At the time, women’s football was not professional. The WSL was not televised and there was no focus on it whatsoever. The girls were part-time, which was typical…You had big club names but they were affiliated to the club rather than being run by the club. Our staff, like Emma and her assistants, were working 90-hour weeks to keep things going.”

He continued, “All the girls were part-time, had other jobs, trained a couple of days a week, and trained at Staines FC at Wheatsheaf Park. There would be about 100 people and a dog, maybe sometimes two or three dogs there.”

The Chelsea Women’s team got its first taste of Wembley in an exhibition match before the men’s FA Cup final in 1997, and who would have thought that would be the start of the lifting trophies at the United Kingdom’s most prestigious ground almost a normality at the end of the season. The Blues would go on to seal the deal for its first trophy of the modern era against Reading in the County Cup and in the 1999/00 campaign, Chelsea locked up the first of what would turn out to be many trebles.

Turbulence followed in the next few seasons, but with the emergence of Roman Abramovich purchasing the club, and the release of the long-time boss George Michealas, the perception of the women’s team at the club began to slowly change. Despite that, Chelsea was still a part-time club until the second season of Hayes’ reign at the club. In her first season after taking over for Matt Beard, the Blues finished in sixth place in the WSL, demonstrating how much work there was left to do.